They drank the champagne from Yashim’s sherbet flutes.
“It sparkles,” said Lefèvre.
“Not for very long,” Yashim added, peering into the glass. “Dr. Lefèvre, I welcome you to Istanbul.”
“The city ordained by Nature to be the capital of the world.” Lefèvre fixed his dark eyes on Yashim. “She calls me like a siren, monsieur. I cannot resist her lure.” He drained his glass and set it down silently in the palm of his other hand. “Je suis archéologue.”
Yashim brought out a tray on which he had set a selection of meze—the crisped skin of a mackerel rolled loose from its flesh, then stuffed with nuts and spices; uskumru dolmasi; some tiny böreks stuffed with white cheese and chopped dill; mussel shells folded over a mixture of pine nuts; karniyarik, tiny eggplants filled with spiced lamb; and a little dish of kabak cicegi dolmasi, or stuffed zucchini flowers. They were all dolma—that is, their outsides gave no hint as to the treasures that lay within, and all made to recipes perfected in the sultan’s kitchens.
Palewski was brooding over his champagne. Lefèvre picked up a zucchini flower and popped it into his mouth.
“How shall I explain?” Lefèvre began. “To me, this city is like a woman. In the morning she is Byzantium. You know, I am sure, what is Byzantium? It is nothing, a Greek village. Byzance is young, artless, very simple. Does she know who she is? That she stands between Asia and Europe? Scarcely. Alexander came and went. But Byzance: she remembers nothing.”
His hand hovered above the tray.
“One man appreciates her beauty, nonetheless. Master of Jerusalem and Rome.”
Palewski buried his face in his glass.
“Constantine, the Caesar, falls in love. What is it—375 A.D.? Byzance is his—she suits him well. And he raises her to the imperial purple, gives her his name—Constantinople, the city of Constantine. The new heart of the Roman Empire. Nothing is too good for her. Constantine plunders the ancient world like a man who showers his mistress with jewels. He brings her the four bronze horses of Lysippos, which now stand above the Piazza San Marco in Venice. He brings her the Serpent Column from Delphi. He brings her the tribute of the known world, from the Pillars of Hercules to the deserts of Arabia.”
“And his mother, too. Don’t forget her,” Palewski added.
Lefèvre turned to the ambassador. “Saint Helena, of course. She came to the city, and unearthed a portion of the True Cross.”
“They should make her patron saint of archaeologists, Lefèvre.”
The Frenchman blinked. “All the holy relics of the Christian faith were brought to the city,” he added. “Relics of the earliest saints. The nails that fixed Jesus to the cross. The goblet and plate that Jesus used at the Last Supper. The holy of holies, gentlemen.”
He held up his hand, fingers outspread.
“Two centuries later, Emperor Justinian builds the church of churches. Aya Sofia, the eighth wonder of the world. She has come a long way from the fishergirl, Byzance.” He paused. “What to say? The centuries of wealth, monsieur. The perfection of Byzantine art. Ceremony, bloodshed, the emperor as the regent of God Almighty.”
Palewski nodded. “Until the crusaders arrive.”
Lefèvre closed his eyes and nodded. “Ah. Ah, 1204, yes, the shame of Europe. I would call it a rape, monsieur: the rape of the city by the brutal soldiers of Western Europe. Her diadem flung into the dust. It is pain for us to speak of this time.”
He selected a delicacy from the tray.
“And yet she is a woman: she recovers. She is a shadow of herself, but she still has charm. So she seeks a new protector. In 1453: the Turkish Conquest. Let me say: she becomes Istanbul. Mehmed’s whore.”
It was Yashim’s turn to blink.
“The Turks—they love her. And so, like a woman, she becomes again beautiful. Is it not so?”
Lefèvre peered into a silence. “But perhaps my little analogy displeases you? Alors, it can be changed.” He spread out his hands, like a conjurer. “Istanbul is also a serpent, which sheds its skin.”
“And you collect those discarded skins.”
“I try to learn from them, Excellency.”
Palewski was studying the tray, a scowl now plainly on his face. “Good meze, Yashim,” he said.
“All dolma—” Yashim began; he meant to explain the theory behind his selections, but Lefèvre leaned forward and tapped Palewski on his knee.
“I have traveled, Excellency, and I can say that all street food is good in the Levant, from Albania to the Caucasus,” he remarked.
Palewski glanced up. Later, he told Yashim that the sight of his face at that moment had brought him the first pleasure of the evening.
Lefèvre licked his fingers and wiped them on a napkin. “The singular contribution of the Turks—I believe this is correct—to the dégustation of civilized Europe—you’ll forgive me, monsieur, I am merely quoting—is the aromatic juice of the Arabian bean: in short, coffee.” He gave a laugh.
“I shouldn’t believe everything you read in books,” Palewski said, with another glance at his friend.
“But I do. I believe everything I read.” Lefèvre wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue. “A professional habit, perhaps. Letters. Diaries. Travelers’ memoirs. I choose my literature carefully. Trivial information can sometimes turn out to be very useful, wouldn’t you agree, monsieur?”
Yashim nodded slowly. “Certainly. But for every useful scrap of information, you must reject a hundred more.”
“Ah, yes, perhaps you are right.” He leaned back, touching his thumbs together. “Have you ever heard of Troy?”
Yashim nodded. “Sultan Mehmet once laid claim to Trojan ancestry,” he said. “He presented the fall of Constantinople as a revenge on the Greeks.”
“How interesting.” The Frenchman pinched his lower lip. “I was about to suggest that one day we will uncover the ruins of the city that Agamemnon sacked.”
“You believe it exists?”
Lefèvre laughed softly. “More than that. I think it will be found exactly where legend has always placed it. Scarcely a hundred kilometers from where we sit—in the Troad.”
“Are you to dig for it yourself?”
“I would, if I could get permission here. But for that—and everything else—one needs money.” He smiled pleasantly and spread his hands.
A breath of air stirred the curtains, and a ring chinked softly on the rail.
“Of course,” Lefèvre continued, “sometimes these things may just drop into your lap, if you read carefully and learn where to look.”
He took a sip of champagne. Palewski got up and opened the second bottle with a pop.
“I’m afraid you must find us very careless with the past,” Yashim said. “We don’t always look after things as we should.”
“Yes and no, monsieur. I do not complain. Carelessness of that sort may be a godsend to the archaeologist. One has only to go to your Atmeydan—the ancient Hippodrome of the Byzantines—to see that all its monuments remain intact. With the exception of the Serpent Column, of course. The column has lost its heads, which is no fault of the Turks.”
Palewski suddenly picked up his glass and drained it.
“Nobody remembers anymore, I shouldn’t think,” Lefèvre went on. “But the bronze heads were wrenched off the column little more than a century ago. To think what their eyes had witnessed, in the centuries since they stood beside the Delphic oracle!” He half turned toward Palewski. “It was foreign vandalism, Excellency.”
“Disgraceful,” Palewski murmured.
“Yes.” He frowned and leaned forward, pointing at Palewski. “Do you know, I recall a story that it was perpetrated by compatriots of yours! Young bloods in the Polish diplomatic, a century ago. I am sure I am right. Still, as I say, you never know what may drop into your lap unexpectedly. And profitably, too, for all concerned.” He paused. “I think it so often pays to believe what you read.”
In the silence that followed this remark,
Yashim produced his main dish, a succulent agro dolce stew of lamb and prunes, followed by a buttery pilaf. Lefèvre rubbed his hands together and pronounced it excellent. He had seen—and smelled—it cooking on the brazier. They drank off the second bottle while he outlined his plans to leave Istanbul and make a tour through the Greek monasteries in the east. “Trabzon, Erzerum. Wonderful men, ignorant men,” he told them, shaking his head.
‘I must say, Excellency, this has been a delightful evening. They say a visitor is starved for good company in Istanbul these days, but I see no sign of it. No sign at all.”
He left shortly afterward, when all the champagne was gone, insisting that he could see himself home. Yashim took him down to the alleyway, led him to the Kara Davut, and found him a chair.
“One of these days—” Lefèvre called out with a wave; and then the chairmen hoisted him onto their backs and trotted away, and Yashim didn’t catch the end of his farewell.
He turned and made his way back up the alley, thinking over the evening’s conversation. For a moment he had the impression that something had moved at the top of the alley, where a small votive candle burned in a niche; but when he turned the corner the alley was dark, and he heard only the sound of his own footsteps. Once, before he reached his door, he turned his head involuntarily and glanced back.
Palewski whipped the door open as Yashim reached the top of the stairs. He had the vodka bottle by the neck.
“It wasn’t the first time he mentioned those serpents’ heads, Yashim. He was like that when we met.” Palewski seemed struck by a thought. “Do you know, if he ever asks to see me again, I’ll say no. I certainly won’t let him out of my sight,” he added paradoxically, uncapping the bottle.
Long ago, in a moment of exuberance, Palewski had led Yashim to a vast armoire that stood at the head of the stairs in the Polish residency. Turning the key in the lock, he had swung back the doors to reveal two of the three bronze heads that had once adorned the Serpent Column on the Atmeydan. They had goggled at them in horror for a few minutes before Palewski abruptly closed the door and said: “There. It’s been eating me up for years. But now you know, and I’m glad.”
“Even Lefèvre isn’t going to look into that big cupboard for the serpents’ heads, my friend.”
Palewski jerked at the bottle so fast that a splash of vodka landed on his wrist. “For God’s sake, Yash!” He glanced wildly at the door. “That Frenchman would be through it like a dose of salts.” He licked his wrist. “Profitable for all concerned, my eye. He smells them, and I’ve got no idea how.” He poured two shots and knocked his back. “Ah. Better. Cleans out the system, you know. It’s my guess that the man’s some sort of thief, Yashim. He knows too much. I’m sorry I brought him. I just couldn’t shake him off.”
“My dear old friend, we need never see him again.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Palewski said.
And he did.
9
“YOU are not what I had expected,” Madame Mavrogordato said. It was not a reproach. It was a statement of fact.
She sat bolt upright in a carved wooden chair, her jet-black hair piled up and stuck with pins. She had the face of a Cappadocian god, with straight black brows and chiseled lips. Yashim blinked and swayed a little on his feet. Madame Mavrogordato was not what he had expected, either.
On balance that was a good thing, but today the balance was fine. Yashim’s temples throbbed. His mouth was dry. Palewski was probably right, and the sultan was really dying from that champagne. He wished he had ignored the note and gone to the hammam first—he should at least have eaten some soup. Tripe soup, best. Palewski, having gone off cautiously down the stairs in the middle of the night, would still be comfortably asleep in bed.
The note had been delivered by hand, very early. While men consulted Yashim about money in one way or another, and sometimes about death, women summoned him more rarely. Women were usually worried about their husbands, their servants—or a mixture of the two; and sometimes they wanted nothing more than to satisfy a curiosity about Yashim. He was attached to the palace; he lived in the city; so they invented little troubles and called him in to brighten up their day. In normal circumstances, even the Christian women would have thought twice about summoning a man to their apartments; but Yashim was above suspicion. They called him, politely, lala, or guardian. In a city of a million people only a handful of men deserved the title, and most of those worked in the women’s apartments in the sultan’s palaces.
Madame Mavrogordato did not call him lala. She would never have servant trouble.
The Mavrogordato mansion stood alone behind high and fire-blackened walls in the Fener district of Istanbul, halfway up the Golden Horn. Yashim lived in the Fener, too, but that hardly made them neighbors: his home was a small tenement apartment above an alley. During the Greek riots eighteen years ago, the district had been ravaged by a fire; beyond the blackened walls, the mansion itself was entirely new. So, too, were the Mavrogordatos.
Quite how new, it was hard to say. Certain old Greek families of the Fener had for centuries provided the Ottoman state with dragomen, governors, priests, and bankers; but many had been linked to the Greek independence movement, and after the riots this so-called Phanariot aristocracy all but disappeared. The Mavrogordatos belonged to a circle of wealthy families who did the same sort of business the Fener aristocracy had done, and even their name seemed quite familiar. But it was not quite the same name, and they were not the same people.
Yashim bowed. Madame Mavrogordato’s black eyes flickered toward an enormous German grandfather clock, which stood against the wall of the dark apartment.
“You are late,” she said.
Yashim glanced at the clock. Beyond it, another clock stood on an inlay side table. Behind Madame Mavrogordato an American clock hung on the wall, with a little glass panel through which you could see the pendulum rhythmically reflecting back the subdued light in the big, closely shuttered room. Between the windows stood another grandfather clock. Its hands showed a little after ten.
“Why don’t you wear the fez?”
“I am not a government employee, hanum. I am almost forty years old and I believe I am old enough to choose what I find comfortable. Just as I like to choose who I work for,” he added coolly.
“Meaning what?”
“I live modestly, hanum. I would rather be busy than idle, but I can be idle, too.”
Madame Mavrogordato picked up a silver bell at her elbow and shook it. An attendant appeared noiselessly at the door. “Coffee.” She glared at Yashim for a moment. “I do not permit smoking in these rooms.”
She indicated a stiff French chair. The attendant returned with coffee, in a silence measured out by the ticking of Madame Mavrogordato’s four clocks. Yashim took a sip. It was good coffee.
“It may or may not surprise you to learn that I, too, have lived modestly in my life,” Madame Mavrogordato began. She picked up a string of beads from her lap and began to thread them through her slender white fingers. “That time, I hope, is past. Monsieur Mavrogordato and I have worked hard and—we have sometimes had the good fortune that others lacked. I am quite sure you understand what I mean—as when I say that I will not allow anything to jeopardize that good fortune.” The beads slipped through her fingers one by one. “You may have heard that Monsieur Mavrogordato is a Bulgar. It is not true. He comes from an ecclesiastical family, formerly in Varna. I am related to the Mavrogordato family by blood, and Monsieur Mavrogordato by his marriage to me. Early on, I recognized his talent for finance. He is good at figures. He enjoys them. But he is not a bold man.”
She looked Yashim squarely in the eye. Yashim nodded. Monsieur Mavrogordato obviously was a Bulgar. Yashim didn’t mind. Left to his own devices, he supposed, Monsieur Mavrogordato might yet be totting up the church accounts in some provincial viyalet. Instead, he had become a merchant prince in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, steered by the woman whose slender claim on the Mavrogordato legacy
had provided the necessary leverage. A woman whose boldness was scarcely in doubt.
“My husband is a moderate man of thoroughly regular habits. It falls to me to maintain a household that is quiet, orderly, and appropriate. Anything that disturbs Monsieur Mavrogordato in his work also disturbs us here.”
Madame Mavrogordato, Yashim noticed, had not touched her coffee.
“I know very little about business,” Yashim said.
“It is not necessary that you should. What I require is a certain—intelligence. And discretion.” She paused. Yashim said nothing. “Well?”
“I hope, hanum, that I am discreet.”
Her lips tightened. “Yashim efendi, my husband was visited yesterday by a Frenchman. He asked for a small loan. In the course of the discussion, the man made certain offers which were in some sense disquieting to my husband. Later, I was able to detect his agitation.”
Yashim blinked. “Offers, hanum?”
“Offers. Promises. It is hard for me to say.”
“You think that your husband was being blackmailed?”
Madame Mavrogordato’s face remained impassive, but she twisted the string of beads in her hands so tightly that Yashim half expected them to break. “I do not think so. My husband has nothing to be afraid of. I believe that the Frenchman was proposing to sell him something.”
“You believe—but you’re not sure?”
“My husband keeps nothing from me, but he found it hard to recall exactly what the man said. If, indeed, he said anything at all. It was more a question of—of the tone. As if he were hinting at something.”
“Maximilien Lefèvre,” Yashim said.
Madame Mavrogordato looked at him sharply. “That’s right. What else do you know?”
The Snake Stone Page 3